Chapter 16. Secrets and Children.

"Do you have any idea how much you owe me for burning my opera house down?"

"Nadir, you're back." I said to Nadir, not at all surprised he was speaking of money.

"I would have been back sooner but I had budget cuts."

"I promise I will pay you back."

"You better."

"Nadir I must finish my work."

"Yes I know."

Only moments after he left, there was a knock at my door.

"Enter." I said, not taking my eyes from my piano, until I realized it was Erica.

"Hello Mr. E. I was exploring while my momma was in the dressing room and I heard a piano so I guess I came to see where it was coming from."

"Aw, little Eric. Yes that was my piano you heard, I write music as a hobby and a living,"

"Raoul hates music but Momma loves it."

"You call your father by his name?"

"Calling him Papa doesn't fit him, he's more of, um, a fop."

"I say the same thing."

"I can play piano too."

"You can? Would you show me?"

She nodded then I let her sit next to me at the piano and she began to play a song I never heard but I realized, if it were played slower, it was Mary Had a Little Lamb.

"I hardly think that's the speed for that song."

"I know."

"So why do you play it so fast?"

"It is better sounding, I like to take slow songs and play them fast, and make sad songs sound happy."

"Oh really?"

"And I like to take songs played on violins and play them on a fiddle in front of everyone."

"You aren't scared of what they would think?"

"No, it's the music that matters."

Suddenly, a strange realization came over me.

"Dear Erica, do you ever feel like an outsider? Like you don't belong?"

"Well I think everyone dose sometimes."

"But do you constantly?"

"Well, yes."

"Do you ever wish you could surround yourself with the music you play and never come out from the cluster?"

"Raoul says I spend too much time on the piano because of I do."

"Do you ever just want to push away the world and stay in your minds solitude?"

"I think of 5 impossible things all before breakfast."

"What is your favorite thing in the world?"

"Music and my doll. My only friends, well unless you count Momma."

"Do you ever give up just because it's too hard?"

"Impossible isn't in my vocabulary."

"Would you look death in the eye and say hello if you crossed paths?"

"And 'how do you do'. I would also spit in the devil's face if I met him."

I stood up and walked to the other side of the room, run my hand threw my wig and touching the string that held on my mask and said. "What do you believe beautiful is?"

She thought for a moment, I wasn't sure if she didn't understand me or if she didn't know what beautiful is, but she smiled and said. "It's the inside that counts."

I turned to her and took my mask and wig off, and she went wide eyed and screamed.

Christine came rushing in at the sound of her daughter screaming, to find Erica staring at me from the corner of the room with fear in her eyes.

"Erica, it's ok!" She said, and put her arms around her daughter. "He's not a monster he's human as you and me! Martha will you take her back to the hotel?"

Erica's nanny took her away and Christine stood up and said. "I'm sorry."

I banged my hand on my piano and turned to her to ask. "Christine, how could you think I wouldn't find out?"

"What do you mean?"

"How could you think I wouldn't know?"

"Oh no."

"Is there something you want to tell me dear Christine?"

"Please Eric…."

"Christine I want the truth out of you! Why is that child so much like me an nothing like your husband?"

Christine turned her head down and said. "Seven years ago, when Raoul took me away from you and I thought you were dead, he didn't take me away alone. Erica isn't his daughter. She's yours."

"Christine, oh Christine." I said, turning away from her. "My own flesh and blood fears me."

"Oh Eric, she just wasn't prepared."

"Take her, take her and leave. Don't let her know…"

"Eric, I'm not leaving just yet. I promised you one last song and I will sing you one last song."

"Christine you truly are an angel. And Erica, she will have everything I can give her."

She kissed my deformed cheek then left.

I sighed then played a few notes on the piano then saw Nadir walk in.

"Hello Nadir." I said. "You wouldn't believe what has happen."